Battery Vehicle Society

I'm using 9600bps speed which I might decide to reduce to lower values if stability would suffer. I was thinking to make chips initialize at much lower speed like 1200 by master reset ( holding Tx low for long period) and then create a new command by which master could reconfigure slaves to higher speed. That functionality is prepared but the code is not appended yet.

I'm working on my own Master design which I call Batteries and Car Management System. This is because it will do not just battery management/monitoring fucntions but also monitoring of other car components parameters: motor , controller temperatures, currents, voltages, RPMs, speed, car position, log storing, other fucntions and simple display understandabler for average user like my wife.
It would do safety functions to prevent disasters like overheats, runaways, overcurrents etc.
The master will run on mega monster Atmel ATmega640. Software will be written in C. Now I'm preparing the design guidlines document according to which I'll start designing actual schematics and writing software.

Display unit will be a Windows Mobile PDA like IPAQ with GUI talking to Master over serial UART. The reason for this is that I want to have display to replace the stock RPM instrument but blend into the design so that it would look that it was there from the start. It would need a good graphic design which I'd ask my friend to do.
The PDA software would be customizeable so that functions, colours and style could be adapted to different cars.

Sounds good and also sounds like a mammoth amount of work Good luck with it and keep us updated. Do you intend to start a blog somewhere?

You might be able to hack a Sat Nav and use one of them. Mine I can hack into and it runs Windows CE (I'd prefer a Linux one but hey it was cheap only £45 from Maplins but I' believe they have sold out) this usually then gives you a touch sensitive screen to play with as a user interface effectively this means a free display and control unit as you've already bought it in the form of a Sat Nav. I/O might be tricky though but mine's got a USB port which is fairly common these days

qdos wrote:You might be able to hack a Sat Nav and use one of them.

If your a genius possibly, that's beyond me.

I could make a simple serial signal available, and some guru can write a program for the pc which interprets/displays the data. I quite like this system.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d_ooxlDAMGs

I'm happy to collaborate with someone who can do that, I can provide serial data from my Master to their PC interface at upto 9600 baud.

Fairly big update to Master software, Alarms and Warnings are now split up. This seems to work OK. Minor tweaks to display. Still working on scrolling messages. Only Alarms like Cell > AbsMaxV now use the negative display and audible alarm.

www.solarvan.co.uk/bms/MASTER311008_V70_2400BAUD.TXT

The genius bit is the bit you're doing Peter. Most GPS are basically just PDAs running some map software and all you need to do is to get to the operating system under it which is often either Windows CE or Linux.

The Cantop video looks interesting and it's Open Source too I'm sure if we were to gather enough folk into this project of yours it really could go some places

qdos wrote: I'm sure if we were to gather enough folk into this project of yours it really could go some places

The recycle bin on my desktop probably

Edit I've justified to myself the purchase of an Asus eepc thingy for BMS tinkering whilst on holiday, and in car testing/updating of software by my co-pilot on install day Roger Crier etc Mrs didn't believe a word of how vital it was, but looks like i got away with it good value from e-buyer

http://www.ebuyer.com/product/146031

After a few modifications to the Speedo area of the Insight dashboard, you merely have to rip the screen off the Assus eepc, lengthen any wires you find are hanging out, and you have the makings of an ideal Cantop display!

Personally I'd leave the instrumentation of the Insight alone as I'd not like to get into too much discussion with either an MOT station or a Police officer regarding a home made speedo and odometer.

The Asus does however present a very nice possibility for use as instrumentation in a vehicle.but why replace something which works very well already and fits beautifully in the dashboard.

A Sat Nav is cheaper and of course works as a Sat Nav when you're not looking at the batteries It takes up less space too so less problematic to fit particularly given they have usually got a handy stick on window mounting bracket. Hack into one and you'll find they run the same OS

qdos wrote:Personally I'd leave the instrumentation of the Insight alone as I'd not like to get into too much discussion with either an MOT station or a Police officer regarding a home made speedo and odometer.

The Asus does however present a very nice possibility for use as instrumentation in a vehicle.but why replace something which works very well already and fits beautifully in the dashboard.

I'm not! The pc is for downloading the software into the master board and tinkering with software whilst in the vehicle. The insight oem display is a work of art IMO and is not affected in anyway by the BMS etc.

I'll have to discuss the speedo/odometer and all the other legal technicalities with myself then, as I am the Police!!

I was referring to Roger's suggestion to rip out the dash. I've driven an Insight and I too agree it's a lovely instrumentation design There's no way I'd be ripping it appart either.

I dare say your ASUS will be fitted with lots of blue flashing LEDs Peter so the MOT station will probably not hassle you much on any mods